The Machine Stops offers haunting exploration of our relationship with technology

The Machine Stops, a new production at Portsmouth’s New Theatre Royal, is set to chill audiences as it delves into the past’s predictions of today’s technologies.

E.M. Forster is best-known for his exquisite novels, but his short story masterpiece The Machine Stops, published in 1909, is astoundingly prophetic and poignant in 2016, and is a haunting exploration of our increasingly complex relationship with technology.

Following the critical success of their recent co-production of In Fog and Falling Snow and Blood + Chocolate, Pilot Theatre will once again join forces with York Theatre Royal to stage the world premiere of The Machine Stops, Neil Duffield’s exciting new adaptation of Forster’s tale.

In a dystopian world where humans have retreated far underground, Kuno alone questions their now total dependency on technology to live and communicate with each other, but in his struggle to break out can he reach the Earth’s surface before the Machine stops?

The show features a brand new soundtrack composed by John Foxx, pioneer of electronic music and founder of Ultravox, and analogue synth specialist Benge.

Playwright Neil Duffield said: “It’s an amazing story, and even more so when you discover it was first published in 1909.

“What’s so astonishing is not only the accuracy with which it foresees the extent of the technologic take-over of almost every aspect of our modern-day lives, but the effect that has on us all – on our relations with each other, on our minds and bodies, our philosophy and culture, on our very sense of being.”

The New Theatre Royal staging of the show takes place on the following dates and times:

• Friday 10th June 2016, from 8:00pm
• Saturday 11th June, from 3:00pm
• Saturday 11th June, from 8:00pm

Tickets are £14.00, and can be booked online through the New Theatre Royal website »